Customer Reviews

Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

The book, Hidden in Plain View, is based on the oral testimony of an elderly lady, shared with one of the co-authors shortly before she died. This book was immediately seized upon by the popular press and apparently, embraced by many people as the "Gospel Truth".
Page 33 of the book shares the author's own statement that the book is conjecture. No collaborative evidence was provided nor sought by the books' authors, and since neither of them are quilt historians, they surely did not realize the inanity of what is proposed.
In my opinion, this book is a major insult to intelligent people everywhere yet it has been picked up to be shared as "fact" in Social Studies classes across America, instead of the "fiction" that it is. The book does not jibe with what we know about the Underground Railroad and African American history. Most certainly, the depiction of quilt blocks is not in tandem with known quilt and/or quilt block history.
Members of the American Quilt Study Group, a group that is comprised of University professors, professional writers/book authors, appraisers, publishers, and many others associated with the quilt world, have privately and publicly condemned this book. For interesting reading, you may like to read the introductory remarks that Marsha MacDowell shared in the year 2000. Marsha is a researcher and faculty member of Michigan State University, and her thoughts are available to read in Vol. 21 of the Research Papers of the American Quilt Study Group "Uncoverings", 2000.
From a quiltmaker's point of view and also that of a quilt historian, several of my articles about Hidden in Plain View have been published by major magazines. This book, HIdden in Plain View, is scholarship at its worst.

I agree with most of the reviews of this book that the material is indeed fascinating. It just doesn't happen to be true. Sadly, the "quilt code" myth has been invented by a couple of vendors who sell quilts, and now also sell books, speaking engagements, memorabilia, etc.

This isn't the place for a "debunking", however. If you're interested in seriously evaluating the facts of the issue, and comparing this book's unfounded (indeed unique) claims against real scholarship on the Underground Railroad and the history of quilting, a good place to start is the research of Leigh Fellner, which appears in the March 2003 issue of Traditional Quiltworks magazine as well as the Hart Cottage Quilts website.

Hidden in Plain View should not be accepted as solid history. The book contains many errors of fact large and small. To cite a few: William Wells Brown was not a sea captain, but was employed on boats in the Great Lakes (116, 118); George Rawick, born in 1929, did not record interviews with ex-slaves in the 1930s (62); the American Revolution was not over by 1776 (57); the 54th Massachusetts was a regiment, not a brigade, and certainly was not stationed in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1863 (175); Robert Purvis was head of the Philadelphia, not the New York, Vigilance Committee (173). These are only a few examples from many. The book also contains many speculations with little or no evidence. We are told that the Prince Hall Masons may have traveled to South Carolina to conduct business prior to the Civil War (105), which suggests that the authors are unaware of the legal restrictions against free blacks coming to South Carolina from out of state. We are told that there were many abolitionist Masons, but none are identified, nor is there any evidence given that Prince Hall Masons traveled to slave states.

The book has a romanticized view of the Underground Railroad. It suggests that there was a regular network leading from South Carolina to Ohio and Canada. In fact, very few enslaved people escaped from South Carolina, and most of those by water along the coast, not overland through the mountains. For a realistic study, see John Hope Franklin's Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation (1999). An elaborate ten part code, using quilts as signal flags is very unlikely. It requires having access to many quilts or the time required to make them. Enslaved people living on the same plantation had easier ways to communicate with each other.

I recommend this book only if the reader understands it is complete fiction, being peddled as fact. I will not address the many historical inaccuracies that other reviewers have already mentioned, but instead will state that most of the quilt patterns the author says were used as symbols for the Underground Railroad were not being made until after the end of the Civil War.

Evidently there was no prior research of quilt history. If there had been, the authors would have known that the stories relating the quilt blocks and the underground railroad in the first half of the 19th. Century are not possible. This book is based on false tales told to the authors. Quilt historians agree that this is all just a sad myth.

I am interested in both quilts and the underground railroad. However, this book struck me as speculation and heresay rather than a well-researched record of historical fact. While historical fact on this subject may be difficult to come by, I found myself knowing no more after reading this book than I did before I read it. I'm afraid the authors set out to write a book based on historical fact and when there were no facts to be found, they wrote it anyway.

I bought this book at an historic site in Savannah, GA and assumed it was factual. The deeper I read into the book, the more I questioned what the authors wanted me to believe. There was a lot of supposition and I began to wonder if they were 'reaching' to explain something they desperately wanted to believe. I found the book difficult to read (the references made sticking to the storyline challenging). This story is based on an oral history and I think that is the major redeeming quality of this book - I do believe in the importance of ancestral history, however, it needs to be substantiated in some fashion. I bought this book thinking it was fact, and I finished the book wondering how much of this was surmised. A very slow read.

I have read pros and cons on the authenticity of this book and remain convinced it is a novel lacking authentic historical documentation. Some of the quilt patterns mentioned did not exist prior to 1900 and the story tellers are unavailable or deceased. Although several respected quilt historians believe the author's tales, I choose to accept Barbara Brackman's statement in her book "Facts and Fabrications...Unraveling the History of Quilts and Slavery." Ms. Brackman wrote on page 7 of her book "We have no historical evidence that quilts were used as signal, codes or maps. The tale of quilts and the Underground Railroad makes a good story, but not good quilt history." The book is a slow read and repetitive.

Just do a search on the internet for underground railroad quilts and you will find many web sites that debunk the myths set forth in this book. Although the concept is appealing, there is absolutely no evidence other than one woman's story to back it up. Almost all underground railroad historians and quilt historians label this book as FICTION, not fact! There is so much factual material to learn about the Underground Railroad - it is an insult to the history of black Americans to perpetuate a myth.

I was intrigued when I found this book and really wanted to like it. However, I feel that HIDDEN IN PLAIN VIEW has no substance and offers no new information that can be validated. The authors base their premise, that quilts were used as a tool to help slaves escape, on the word of a woman who sells quilts in South Carolina. The theory was that quilts with different symbols were displayed and they gave messages to the slaves. The authors also went back into African history and attempted to tie in a lot of symbols. I believe the authors were trying, but they really had no solid information to offer and kept on spinning their story.

It is possible that along a route going north, a quilt could be displayed outside of a house as a message that this was a "safe house" or something of that nature. Escaping slaves mostly traveled by night, so hanging out a quilt would only work during the daylight hours. There's a story for children called SWEET CLARA AND THE FREEDOM QUILT that is quite good. The girl in the story makes a quilt out of scraps of material that detail the plantation that she lives on; also detailed, was the area outside the plantation, which was more difficult since the girl had to have that area described to her. In the book, the quilt is used as a map for anyone attempting to escape and go to Canada. I really liked the idea and found it plausible.

I think, that after all of this time, we'll never know for sure if quilts were hung as signals for the travelers on the Underground Railroad, but the idea of a quilt helping to save a human life is comforting.